The witchers are a very good trans man narrative and one of great importance to me, and I spend every waking hour waiting for the Netflix adaptation to fuck up the trials and just the existence of the witchers as a group. I mean, the games already fucked most of it up, because they became about pleasing dude-bros, and I'm certain that the Netflix adaptation will fuck it up too, it's just the question of how much, I guess.
Damn, you’re telling me this group that designate themselves as “men only” is made up out of unwanted children, who go through a set of trials that involve masculinizing hormones and become ugly, feared, unnatural social outcasts barely considered human, who exist to serve for a masculine purpose of fighting and is only wanted when their specific traits that mark them as freaks of nature can be utilized for society after which they are paid and told to leave and never come back unless they are asked to. Who consider the honor of their brotherhood and masculinity to be of great importance and while they ensure distance between them and everyone else, they all secretly wish to be treated like normal men, but have no choice other than to live a life distanced from every single social group, town, and society itself on account of their existence?
You're telling me this group of men whose masculinity is so demonized and unnatural that they become inhuman and socially hated across the entire world? Damn, I wonder where I heard this before?
While this is personally not my headcanon- there is even more meta for this is we consider that Triss scolded the witchers for giving Ciri the same masculinizing hormones (in the form of mushrooms) and insisted that it was important for her to experience normal female puberty and experience the world as a girl.
This is despite the fact that throughout all of the rest of the series, Ciri laments that she was in fact not turned into a witcher and as a result of going through female puberty is at significant risk of sexual violence which she experiences more than once. Geralt (and Lambert, interestingly, because Lambert in the games makes more than one rape joke) feels very strongly about sexual violence and goes on a bit of a revenge rampage when he learns from Ciri of what she experienced while he was trying to find her.
Wait I'm not done chewing on this yet. Ciri throughout the series is treated as nothing more than a brood mare and her entire value is in her uterus by everyone who actually knows who she is- yes, even by Triss who claims to love her like a sister and want nothing but the best for her- except for three specific people/groups:
Geralt and the other witchers, who when allowing Ciri the choice were well on their way to turning her into a witcher
Geralt's hansa, who are all invested because they recognize that Geralt will stop at nothing to rescue his daughter from those that will harm her
Yennefer, eventually, though she had initially agreed that Ciri's value was in her uterus she eventually came around to valuing Ciri as a person and telling her she could be anything she wanted (except a witcher, because that ship had sailed)
Anyone who knows who Ciri actually is refers to her as "the witcher girl". Ciri herself, when she's not actively in hiding, loudly calls herself a witcher at every oppurtunity even though she's technically not because she never went through the Trials. She never wanted to be a sorceress and she rejected being a princess before Geralt even knew who she was. But ever since she had a choice, she has chosen to be a witcher.
She knows it's dangerous. She knows the risk is steep. She knows the process is not easy, is painful even. She knows her little witcher family has intense trauma around their childhoods and she knows they are trying, trying, not always succeeding, but trying to do better. Ciri doesn't want to leave the fortress. She doesn't want to be a girl. She doesn't want to be raised in a temple or a magic school. She wants to be a witcher, just like Geralt, just like Eskel and Lambert and Coen and Vizimir. She wants to eat the masculinizing mushrooms. She wants to undergo the Trial. She knows she has a 10% survival chance and wants it all anyway.
I'm thinking of that moment before they left, when she falls off the ledge and Geralt just barely manages to catch her, and she wails and screams and cries into his chest as he hugs her tight, and he just whispers apologies to her because he *knows* she doesn't want to go but he didn't choose this life and he's afraid choosing it for her will hurt her the same way it hurt him just like Triss said it would.
And I'm thinking of him fighting back to back with her at the end and how he thought it was nice to not only have her back but to see how her training culminated into a competent fighter capable of keeping pace with him step-for-step and wondering why he ever let anyone convince him that wasn't the right choice for her.
